Testing the waters 🧪

OpenAI to Test Ads in ChatGPT

Speaking of ads, OpenAI is launching them in ChatGPT this week. Plus, the tech company plans to release an updated chat model, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman reportedly told employees in an internal memo. 

What it means for you: The "clearly labeled" ads will appear in a separate area beneath your chat and will be shown to logged-in users who use the app for free or have the cheaper Go subscription. OpenAI says advertisers won’t influence how ChatGPT answers your questions.

The competition: This sets OpenAI apart from competitors like Anthropic and Google, which have said they won't run ads in their AI chatbots. Anthropic even aired a Super Bowl commercial poking fun at OpenAI, saying "ads are coming to AI," but not to its chatbot Claude. The version that aired during the game was toned down after Altman called the original campaign "clearly dishonest." 

Anthropic Eyes $20B Round + $350B Valuation

Anthropic is in the final stages of raising $20 billion at a $350 billion valuation. The company raised $13 billion just five months ago, but intense competition between frontier labs and the ongoing cost of compute has pushed it to raise again as quickly as possible. 

Anthropic's momentum: The fundraise builds on recent wins, including the deployment of coding agents that have software engineers raving about productivity gains. Last week, Anthropic's release of new models focused on legal and business research rattled share prices of publicly traded data firms as investors worried about AI disruption. There’s speculation that the company is preparing its IPO for a blockbuster summer.

Not just Anthropic: 

• OpenAI is reportedly assembling a $100 billion fundraising round and also gearing up for its IPO.

• Google parent company Alphabet raised $32 billion in a massive bond sale this week.

• Databricks just closed a $5 billion funding round at a $134 billion valuation. The data analytics company helps clients connect their data with AI models to launch custom agents and now generates $1.4 billion in annualized revenue from AI products alone. 

Business logic without the black box

GoRules is an open-source rules engine that lets you visually build, test, and deploy decision logic. 

How you can use it

• Add auditable guardrails after model outputs

• Build real-time decisioning systems with low latency

• Let non-technical teams edit decision tables visually

• Simulate rule changes on real data before deployment

Pricing: Free and paid plans available

Text-to-speech that actually sounds human

FlowSpeech is an AI text-to-speech studio that turns text, PDFs, and even images into expressive, natural-sounding audio. 

How you can use it

• Convert blog posts into podcasts or audiobooks

• Create voiceovers for videos and courses

• Add accessibility audio to your content

• Speed up production without hiring voice talent

Pricing: Free and paid plans available

Your private AI second brain

Loomind is a local-first knowledge system that indexes your documents, chats, and files into a searchable AI assistant. It runs heavy processing locally for privacy and only sends anonymized context to cloud models when needed. 

How you can use it

• Search and chat with your entire knowledge base

• Summarize documents and extract key insights

• Connect ideas across files and conversations

• Keep sensitive data private while using AI

Pricing: Free and paid plans available